ICC announce FTP cycle 2025-2029 for Women's Championship: Check India's opponents

ICC announce FTP cycle 2025-2029 for Women’s Championship: Check India’s opponents

In the next Women's Championship cycle, each team will compete against eight oppositions with four home and four away series to be observed. A total of 132 ODI matches will be played in a total of 44 series with each of the bilaterals featuring three ODI matches.

India women cricket team. (Photo: Instagram/Smriti Mandhana)

New Delhi: The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday has announced the Future Tours Programme (FTP) 2025-2029 for the fourth ICC Women’s Championship. This cycle will determine the participants for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2029. The quadrennial event will expand to 11 teams in place of the current 10-team tournament.

Zimbabwe women’s cricket team will make its debut in the 2029 World Cup, marking a major step in the development of women’s cricket in the African region.

In the next Women’s Championship cycle, each team will compete against eight oppositions with four home and four away series to be observed. A total of 132 ODI matches will be played in a total of 44 series with each of the bilaterals featuring three ODI matches.

Which teams India will face in ICC Women’s Championship?

The Indian women’s cricket team will be hosting England, Australia, Bangladesh, and Zimbabwe. The Women in Blue will travel to New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies, and Ireland to play the away legs in this FTP cycle.

There will be four ICC events in the same FTP cycle starting with the 2025 World Cup in India. There will be ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 in England. There will be inaugural edition of the ICC Women’s Champions Trophy (50-over format) and then again in 2028 there will be another ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.

India will also be engaged in a tri-nation series along with England (hosts) and New Zealand just before the 2026 T20 World Cup. Ireland will also host Pakistan and West Indies in another tri-series. The four-year FTP cycle also mentioned that Sri Lanka (2027) and West Indies (2028).

No thorough planning for Test cricket

There is no further progress on Test matches under this cycle with Australia are said to have planned the most planned series where they will face against the likes of England, India and South Africa (each opponent twice) while the Women in Yellow will face the West Indies once.

The demand across the globe has been to increase the women’s Test matches to a five-day affair to determine a result. Additionally, the Test matches in a bilateral series should be increased rather than one-off Tests is another notable demand. There isn’t much clarity by the ICC on this note.

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Viransh Shah Viransh is an Indian Sports journalist who has covered sports such as Table Tennis, Squash, Cricket, Volleyball, Hockey, and Badminton both off the field and on the desk. Viransh has a knack of getting on the ground at times in search of stories, but always ensures to verify them from multiple sources and exercises patience when gathering all relevant facts for the stories presented in his articles. Viransh's interest in Indian sports piqued after PV Sindhu’s silver medal win at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and was further intensified by Neeraj Chopra’s gold medal win at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Viransh considers his featured interview with young Indian table tennis player Sreeja Akula as one of his best achievements in his short sports journalism career thus far. Read More

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